The Internet and other digital communications networks continue to have significant effects on every aspect of personal and professional life. Network communications are becoming increasingly ubiquitous due to the reduced cost and increased capability of portable computing devices, as well as the increasing prevalence and capability of mobile telephony and other wireless communications technologies. Additionally, more and more devices, including set top boxes, television receivers, video game players, placeshifting devices, media players and the like, are becoming enabled for network communications.
While modern technologies allow increased mobility and improved access to data and services, a tradeoff often exists between network access and security. Although many homes and businesses have access to broadband network connectivity, for example, most of these network connections are protected by a firewall or the like to prevent unwanted intrusions. Firewalls and other structures, while effectively preserving the security of a home or other network, can have the undesired effect of preventing access to desired services or other features that are located on the opposite side of the firewall. For example, if a network service wishes to provide programming, data or instructions to a client that is located behind a firewall, such communications are often blocked to prevent security breaches. Configuring the firewall to allow access from the network service may be difficult for many users, and may also create undesirable security gaps that could be exploited by others. If a customer service representative, for example, needs to gain access to a device located behind a firewall to assist the user in configuring or using the device, such a connection may be very difficult to establish using conventional techniques.
In addition to preventing unwanted access to a secure network, then, firewalls and other security mechanisms may prevent legitimate and desired access to remotely-located content or services, particularly if the security mechanism is incorrectly or incompletely configured by the user. Challenges can therefore arise in effectively establishing connections between clients and services for media streaming, media recording, placeshifting, gaming and/or other applications.
As a result, it is now desirable to create systems and methods for reliably and conveniently transmitting messages from services to clients over a network. These and other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background section.